Rafferty: Is the party just getting started at the J House?

Published 7:09 pm, Friday, May 31, 2013

There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Prince Harry visited the J House when he was in town for the polo matches. When pressed for confirmation, royal spokesman Sir Mumford Pootsbottom emphatically stated, "Blimey, please. We have standards!" I say, good for Harry. Sure, he can be a royal dope, insulting Afghanistan by comparing their war to a video game; wearing a swastika armband as a joke; and getting caught on film butt-naked in Vegas, but for Harry, the J House was off-limits.

The royal entourage must have done their advance work and concluded what many in Greenwich have already started to theorize: Something's afoot at our town's latest go-to watering hole for wandering eyes among the spray-tan set. Open for barely a year, the Riverside hotel and attendant restaurant know collectively as the J House, has become a lightning rod in the community on several fronts. We should have known something was going to be different when last year, instead of the traditional classifieds for employment, the owners actually posted a "casting call" on Craigslist, asking applicants to send in head shots.

This kicked off a summer of, what residents say, was a nightly bacchanalia of outdoor sex, blasting music, public urination and vandalism. The restaurant even had its own D-list celebrity run-in with the law, as ex-Westchester prosecutor and attention-junkie Jeanine Pirro's dirtbag ex-husband was arrested during a scuffle with another woman. C'mon, this is Greenwich. You were expecting Rihanna and Chris Brown?

So fast-forward to the present, and owner John Fareri has to reapply to open the outdoor patio area of the J House. Under the circumstances, it's no surprise local residents and business owners want usage severely limited. In addition to the debauchery, parking, or more specifically the lack of it, is foremost on the minds of many. Business owners are doing the math and wondering how the J House is able to pull off a trick not readily available to other restaurateurs.

If you read the town's zoning ordinances you'll find some very tight restrictions in terms of how many parking spaces you need to have on hand, relative to the number of patrons you will be accommodating. Recent town history is peppered with stories of people looking to open restaurants only to realize that compliance with these restrictions makes doing business very difficult. Yet at the J House, we are told, they are in compliance, even if valets have to move cars up and down the street. The J House, we are also told, is getting just what the previous tenant -- a Howard Johnson's with no late-night overflow crowd -- received from the town.

Ahh, Greenwich. Move along, nothing to see here. Everyone is treated fairly, everyone is the same. But are they really? The folks at Planning & Zoning knew full well on day one that the J House was never intended to be the same as the old Howard Johnson's, so why wasn't Mr. Fareri and his higher standards hotel held to a more equitable higher standard? HoJo was a motel with a motel restaurant, catering to a very different crowd than what Mr. Fareri was planning on attracting. Mr. Fareri was creating a destination location, designed to attract the swanky swells, always on the hunt for the next big thing. That's admirable and good business, but for P&Z to blithely dismiss concerns over parking and preferential treatment at J House, when it uses those same restrictions to bludgeon other businesses with Inspector Javert-like obedience to the law should they want to open or expand a shop or restaurant, it's disingenuous at best.

Or maybe it's something else entirely. See, Mr. Fareri is not your typical homebody small businessman with a dollar and a dream, he's a big businessman with multiple applications in front of P&Z, lots of dollars, and he's obviously very well connected. A point driven home by Mr. Don Heller, chairman of the P&Z commission, who told a recent audience of annoyed and outraged residents that, "we have to remember, Mr. Fareri does contribute a lot to the town." I guess he does. Maybe just enough to get what he wants.